The Justice Department has filed civil cases seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of 40 naturalized Americans accused of concealing serious crimes or other disqualifying information, an unusually concentrated use of a legal process historically pursued only rarely.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
The Justice Department has launched 40 new court actions seeking to revoke citizenship from naturalized Americans accused of hiding serious crimes, foreign-government activity and other information that prosecutors say could have prevented them from becoming U.S. citizens.
The complaints were filed between Aug. 21 and Oct. 2 in federal courts across the country, making the latest action the largest group of denaturalization complaints filed during a single period since President Donald Trump returned to office, according to the Justice Department.
“Today’s announcement marks the largest denaturalization effort in modern history,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said. “From an individual convicted of espionage to others convicted of sexual offenses against minors, these defendants concealed critical facts from the U.S. government and represent serious criminal offenders.”
The defendants have not automatically lost their citizenship as a result of the filings. The government has initiated civil proceedings and must establish in federal court that each defendant meets the legal requirements for denaturalization.
The Justice Department emphasized that the claims contained in the complaints remain allegations and that no determination of civil liability has been made.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, citizenship obtained through naturalization can be revoked when the government establishes that it was illegally procured or secured through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.
That makes denaturalization fundamentally different from stripping citizenship from someone merely because the government later disapproves of conduct committed after naturalization. Prosecutors generally must connect the case to an illegality or material deception affecting the person’s entitlement to citizenship.
The latest 40 cases involve defendants accused of a broad range of serious conduct. The Justice Department said they include allegations involving service as an agent of a foreign government, voluntary manslaughter and aggravated sodomy of a special-needs man, as well as other violent crimes and sexual offenses.
The complaints were spread across numerous federal jurisdictions, including courts in California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Indiana and the District of Columbia.
The scale of the filing stands out because denaturalization was historically an uncommon federal enforcement measure.
Research cited by The Washington Post found that the Justice Department brought only 305 denaturalization cases beginning in 1990 through the period examined in 2018. That amounted to fewer than 11 cases annually on average.
Some years saw no cases at all.
Historically, the government frequently reserved denaturalization for particularly serious circumstances, including former Nazis who concealed their wartime activities, national-security cases and defendants accused of significant immigration fraud.
The Trump administration has substantially increased the government’s use of the procedure.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced successive groups of cases involving defendants accused of concealing murder, terrorism-related activity, child sexual abuse, fraud, drug trafficking and other crimes.
In May, prosecutors filed 12 cases involving allegations that included concealed terrorist support, war crimes, espionage and sexual abuse. Another 17 were announced in June, followed by 10 in July.
The department announced another coordinated group in August, saying at the time that 123 civil denaturalization complaints had been filed since Jan. 20, 2025.
The new 40-case effort continues that expansion.
Federal officials have described denaturalization as one part of the administration’s broader attempt to identify people who allegedly obtained immigration benefits through deception.
The process can have far-reaching consequences.
If the government prevails, a federal court can revoke the defendant’s naturalization and cancel the certificate establishing U.S. citizenship. Depending on the individual’s underlying immigration status and circumstances, losing citizenship can subsequently expose that person to removal proceedings.
Denaturalization itself, however, is not the same proceeding as deportation.
Civil denaturalization cases also differ from criminal prosecutions. A person does not need to be convicted of a new criminal offense in the denaturalization case itself. Instead, prosecutors seek a court judgment establishing that citizenship should never legally have been granted because statutory naturalization requirements were not met or material facts were concealed.
The government nevertheless faces a demanding evidentiary standard when attempting to take away citizenship.
Supreme Court precedent has long recognized the importance of citizenship and required the government to present clear and convincing evidence in civil denaturalization proceedings. Courts can reject cases when prosecutors fail to demonstrate that a false statement, concealed fact or legal defect was sufficiently connected to the naturalization decision.
The government’s renewed use of the procedure has drawn sharply different reactions.
Administration officials argue that people who deliberately concealed serious crimes or other disqualifying information should not be permitted to retain citizenship obtained through fraud.
Immigration attorneys and civil-rights advocates have warned that dramatically expanding denaturalization could expose naturalized Americans to years-old investigations and create uncertainty over citizenship that citizens by birth generally do not face.
Critics have also raised concerns because civil defendants do not receive all of the protections afforded defendants in criminal prosecutions, including an automatic constitutional right to government-funded counsel.
The administration has maintained that cases are being pursued when prosecutors identify a valid statutory basis and evidence showing that naturalization was unlawfully obtained.
The distinction is central to the current cases. The Justice Department is not asserting a general power to cancel naturalized citizenship because an individual subsequently commits a crime. Its complaints allege that the circumstances surrounding the defendants’ original naturalization made the citizenship legally defective.
One recent case illustrates how such proceedings can work.
In August, a federal court revoked the naturalization of an Indian national who had been convicted of rape after the Justice Department established that he concealed rape and kidnapping conduct during the naturalization process.
“American citizenship is not a shield for criminals,” Blanche said after the judgment. “He concealed a rape and kidnapping during the naturalization process, and a federal court has now revoked his citizenship.”
The latest 40 cases have yet to reach that stage.
Each will proceed separately in its respective federal district court, where defendants can contest the government’s allegations and prosecutors must demonstrate why the person’s naturalization should be undone.
The filings nevertheless represent a major acceleration of an enforcement mechanism that for decades occupied a relatively small corner of federal immigration law.
With 40 complaints filed in approximately six weeks, the Justice Department is signaling that denaturalization will remain an increasingly prominent component of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy — including against people who have already crossed one of the final thresholds of the immigration system and become American citizens.
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